


Mother

by catcorsair



Category: Le Fantôme de l'Opéra | Phantom of the Opera & Related Fandoms, Le Fantôme de l'Opéra | Phantom of the Opera - Gaston Leroux, Phantom - Susan Kay, Phantom of the Opera - Lloyd Webber
Genre: Abuse, Canon Compliant, Character Study, Christmas, Coercion, Consent Issues, Dark, Dead Dove: Do Not Eat, Death, Desire, Drama, Dubious Consent, Emotional Hurt, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Family, Fucking, Hatred, Hurt, Hurt/Comfort, Hypnotism, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Incest, Intoxication, Kissing, Love, Mental Health Issues, One Shot, Pain, Parent/Child Incest, Rape/Non-con Elements, Religion, Religious Imagery & Symbolism, Reunions, Roughness, Sexual Content, Smut, Sort Of, This Is Not Going To Go The Way You Think, Torture, Trauma, Violence, catcorsair ruins the holidays
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-25
Updated: 2019-12-25
Packaged: 2021-02-26 03:55:44
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 20,527
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21837088
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/catcorsair/pseuds/catcorsair
Summary: Christmas, 1861. Upon his return to Paris, Erik visits his mother, Madeleine, determined to win the love she has so long denied him.
Relationships: Erik | Phantom of the Opera/Madeleine
Comments: 44
Kudos: 38





	Mother

_**Mother** _ _by catcorsair_

_Second place winner in NotAGhost3's #POTOChristmasOneShotChallenge 2019_

_**A/N:**_ _Leroux Canon Prequel with Kay Elements._ _Please be mindful of the tags on this one. T/W's for very heavy incest, and related themes._ _I take these themes seriously, with a focus on their psychological aspects. This is not porn for the sake of porn, and it's not going to go the way you might think..._

_**Happy Holidays! Please Review :)** _

* * *

"Mother," came the voice of the Devil, echoing in the still semi-darkness of the sitting room without warning, as if it sounded from Hell itself, "you look well."

Madeleine gave a start, sputtering his name like its curse had already hung on her lips. Her bible slid from her fingers to trace the length of her frozen legs and crash to the floor, as her son laughed softly from the shadows.

_Be thou alert and of sober mind; your enemy the Devil prowls around like a roaring lion, looking for someone to devour. Resist him!_

She could not mask the tremor in her voice as she again called out to him, hating the vile taste of his name on her tongue but needing to know if the apparition were true, or yet another trick of her aging, time-wearied mind, "Erik?"

"Merry Christmas, Mother," he replied, still entombed in hellish darkness, as honest as the voice in her own head.

She had been reclining on the couch, her shawl wrapped loosely about her shoulders as the fire slowly died in the grate, a crocheted afgan in red and green warming her timeworn knees. Short, white candles flickered on the sill of every window, hot wax bleeding onto the wood, frosting the glass and casting the curtains in an ominous glow; greenery spilled in lush distraction from every table-top and arch, filling her nostrils with the faraway scent of living things, as the Christmas tree, like some pagan idol manifest in her sitting-room, shimmered in its robe of gold and green.

It was evening; dark, but not yet night: that empty hour preceding the deliverance of sleep, though even that was no balm to Madeleine, nor had it ever been. Sleep promised no respite from the tortures of waking, only some hours reprieve, until the Sun––that holy beacon, that accusive eye of God––tore her numb flesh from its restless succor, to face the pain of day again.

It was him, had always been _him_ : that corrupt child, that incubus, who preyed upon her sleep.

And to come to her tonight, of all nights: when thirty years ago to this very hour, screaming, in an agony of power, she had pushed the abhorrent creature from the once-lovely lips of her maiden's cunt, to burst into this miserable world, pouring her life's-blood and piss onto the fine bed her husband had bought her for their first union, with his body still mouldering in the sitting room below––

Madeleine fumbled for the holy book, frantic eyes searching the darkness for the source of his hideous, exquisite voice, as Erik drawled, unseen, "stop looking so dumbfounded, Mother. Is it not common enough, for a son to visit the only family he has?"

Outside, on the whitened street, a horse-drawn carriage passed, bells jingling merrily, the carefree laughter of its occupants raucous enough to echo into the sitting room; stunned to impotent silence, Madeleine sat frozen beneath her crocheted throw as if she too were outside in that snowy night air, clutching white-fingered at her dead husband's bible, as the Devil himself, dark shoulders dusted in fresh snow, stepped into the circled firelight, to stare at her from the shadowed alcove just aside her Christmas tree.

"No," she breathed, taking in the sight of him, tall and thin and threatening in his darkly-elegant apparel. A ragged hiss pushed between her lips, forcing her cough; mindlessly, she wrapped her arms about the book, and hugged it close to her breast. "Not you. Not tonight––"

"Why not tonight?" said the Devil, mildly, shuddering the tinsel on the Christmas tree with the tips of his gloved fingers as he passed. He flicked at an ornament in the form of an elegantly monogrammed brass bell, sending it ringing and spinning on its branch. "It is my birthday, after all. Or have you forgotten, Mother?" The bell crashed to the ground in a tinkling clatter; Madeleine swallowed a gasp as her son crushed the golden bauble underfoot.

She could never have forgotten; despite her attempts to ignore the cruel memories of her past, to drown them in godless vices, brown liquors and warm flesh, until her repentant knees showed red and shining––still they haunted her, and this one, worst of all. A ghost of too many Christmases past, so long ago––

God was good. God had forgiven her!

The Devil held no more power over her.

The lap-blanket fell to her feet as she stood. Careful to keep his eye, Madeleine edged about the couch even as her son strode, slowly, intently towards her; though she thought she saw a hint of frustration in the plumbeous darkness of his half-shrouded gaze, soon, Madeleine had her back pressed against the far wall of the sitting-room, with Erik on the opposite side of it.

"Mother, really," he said softly, two fingers outstretched towards her in a lamely supplicative gesture, "I had hoped you might be civil with me."

"I know you too well for that," spat Madeleine, palms flat against the wall behind her, "how can you expect me to welcome a creature with a forked tongue?"

The dark eyes closed tight behind the mask. For only an instant Erik stood, stock still, clenching a gloved fist at his side, as the flickering candles and pine-garlands behind him cast his dark shape in an uncannily festive backdrop; he looked ridiculous, absurd, in such a merry setting as this. With little empathy, Madeleine realized that her son must have been an outcast anywhere he had ever tried to call home; the only place she could imagine him living was underground, like the Devil he was. Where else could such a villainous creature reside, but deep in Hell?

He had turned away from her, distractedly searching the darkened corners of the room and the objects within, as if he were attempting to skirt her eye; even so, Madeleine could not draw her stare from the black shroud that covered his face, as the memory of that abhorrent secret which lay beneath its cover manifested behind her eyelids.

She did not mean to say the words aloud. "You still wear it," she breathed, staring, and saw him stiffen; when he turned to capture her gaze, Madeleine's shot to the floor.

"Your first Christmas gift?" said Erik, mildly, tapping a long finger against the hard surface of his cheek. "I do. Though I admit I have long ago outgrown that which you gave me. You see, I am not so small as I once was, Mother."

He did not exaggerate; the sitting-room, which must have once felt like a palace to the weak, frail, fearful child she remembered, was now hardly fit to contain him. He commanded the space, moving through it now like an eidolon of Hell in a holiday nightmare; and while Madeleine was not a small woman––though she was proud of her youthful figure, and rightfully so, for even young men still clamored for the attentions of this attractive widow, despite its being many years since she had allowed another into her bed––his malevolent presence made her feel as if she were not in the room at all.

As it so often had, in his youth.

She watched him survey the space, eerily bestial in his movements as he ran his fingertips over the furniture, upholstery, a row of delicate goose-feather Christmas trees arranged in a superficial tableau across the top of the étagère; knowingly, studiously, he sampled it all, as if he felt the significance of every item, peering into its inner workings with only the barest of precise touches. Madeleine felt herself cowering from him even as he maintained a considerable measure of space between them; soon she found herself pressed by her spine into the very corner of the room as if she hoped to escape between the sharp crux of its walls, her fingertips white on a lamp-table to her side. And yet she could not tear her eyes from him; it was revolting, disarming, how sensually he carried himself––this creature she had from herself created––for even as a boy he had done the same, as if some immoral rhythm compelled his every step and commanded his long fingers, just as it had his sinful tongue. It unnerved her further to realize that the space no longer cowed him; now her son moved with a careful nonchalance the likes of which Madeleine had never observed from him in this house, for despite his disarming grace and the Devil's power raging within him, he had never failed to shrink in his mother's presence, or from her hand.

Now, that frightened boy stood tall.

Sending a flurry of snowfall to the carpet, Erik dropped his top hat on a table, and with a flourish flung his evening-cloak over the back of a chair; sliding a gloved hand over his scalp, he smoothed the neat curve of his sculpted hair. "Sit, Mother," he said, gesturing to the couch with one hand as he stood behind it, letting his words fall like weights in the still air between them. He stroked lazily at the intricately carved wooden arch that crowned the back cushion, prophetically slipping a finger between the finely-wrought mahogany petals of its feminine design––the suggestive gesture stopped Madeleine's breath in her throat––then, fixing his gaze to hers, dark eyes narrowed behind that wicked mask as if he were reading her most intimate thoughts, he added, softly, his serpent's tongue false and beguiling, enthralling, "there is no reason to be so nervous around me, Mother. I am your son, am I not?" Now he pointed a long, gloved finger at her belly, lower, as Madeleine caught her breath, "it was you who bore me, woman, thirty years ago, tonight."

"Whatever you might whisper with that tongue, Devil, I am not afraid of you," she lied, hating the tremor in her throat and the revelatory trembling of her fingers in her clenched fist. Erik shot her a glance, circling her as he moved to the couch from which she had just risen. The crocheted throw in red and green lay wrinkled and forgotten, half on the cushion and half on the floor. Beside it, her bible spread its vellum wide, cracked binding straining open like a screaming mouth; for all the thrumming in her ears, Madeleine could still hear it call to her: _sin is crouching at your door; it desires to have you, but you must rule over it––_

"Aren't you?" Erik sighed, his Devil's voice strangely submissive, searching, as he slid off a glove and draped it over the edge of the couch. With a queer sensation in the pit of her stomach Madeleine noticed that he had retained the other; as if to ensure that she had noticed his doing so, he flexed all the fingers of his leather hand before him, gazing down upon the grim gesture as if it interested him more than she. He kicked out at the toppled bible as he passed, sending it tumbling into the center of the room.

The left hand was the tool of the Devil. Son knew it as well as Mother; for when he was still a boy Madeleine had burdened––at the expense of much of her sanity––to rid him of his ghoulish preference for it; now, her son was proving his triumph to her. Madeleine could see it there, plain as the hard angles of his black mask. The Devil had clearly won him: the boy, however disfigured by Hellish power, was now entirely lost to it.

"Erik," said Madeleine, distractedly, watching his dangerous fingers curl and tense against the pliant cushion, "the fire is dying. Let me just call Claudin. There is an evil chill in the air, tonight, I think…"

"No need, Mother," Erik replied, mildly, ignoring her intimation with his back to her. He had turned his attention to the writing desk before the tall window, which Madeline had long favored for collecting her letters and trinkets. Little had changed about the room at all since his departure as a boy, save the newly fashionable tasseled curtains and the soft couch in the modern style, and even that had been purchased nearly a decade ago. The carpets, the paintings, the candlesticks and sputtering gas lamps, half-obscured in boughs of red and gold and green––all of them once beautiful, once interesting, once fine––had slowly rotted since his departure, just as she had, in her matronly senescence.

Alone, but for her God.

And her memories.

Watching her son, this intruder, slide his fingertips over the small portraits, figurines and festive things which decorated the shelf of the small table, Madeleine understood that he must recall each object well. How many times had she found him here, in this very room, doing much the same as he did now? She had punished him for his presumption then, but that was half a lifetime ago. The words to forestall his caresses went dry in her stammering throat.

His attention lingered, wolfishly, on a framed portrait of his mother, in the summer of her youth––beautiful, seventeen, smiling as she rarely had since then––a stranger to the woman she was now, bearing a beloved bundle, safely swaddled in her arms. She sucked in a breath as Erik stroked the miniature figure, moving his fingers slowly, deliberately down the length of her clouded form to smother the small creature she held with his fingertip; the image wavered in its aureate frame and fell, shattering on the table-top as Madeleine gasped and dug her fingernails into the soft mahogany veneer of the lamp-table.

Caroline, was her name. The Devil's sister; an Angel, now, with her poor father in Heaven. Sometimes, in the private darkness of her thoughts, Madeleine still wished to join them.

Though its upheaval had stopped Madeleine's breath, her son appeared to remain unmoved by the broken object, shoving aside its shattered pieces to trace another gilt frame, then another, first of his maternal Aunt, long dead, next of the step-father who loathed him, glaring at each of the severe ghosts in their ornate prisons. Then, with an audible intake of breath––Madeleine had always despised the sound of air hissing between those leather nostrils––her son stilled before the solemn portrait of a man, dignified, imposing in his stance before a marbled back-curtain, to press two fingers to the glass. He was tall and thin and pale, much like his son, but with the face of an Angel: beautiful, dignified and fair. Frowning, Erik took up the photograph in his gloved palm and raised it close before him to study the image for a moment; then he returned it to the table-top, carefully arranging it face-down on the shelf, and Madeleine knew, though she hated to admit it, that the Devil could see the remarkable resemblance just as clearly as she. After a pause he slid the frame into his jacket pocket, to Madeleine's strangled utterance of protest behind him.

But he ignored her objection. "I suppose you never did have a photo made of me, Mother," Erik said to the row of portraits, his haunting voice low and even, "or else I should have expected to see a keepsake of your son alongside those you have loved."

Madeleine said nothing, reaching blindly for the bell-string aside the hearth. If she could only summon her butler, Claudin!

With a sigh Erik turned to her, and regarding her trembling fingers with narrowed eyes––damn those Devil's eyes––he said, darkly, "there is no need to bother with that, Mother. Your servant will not be disturbing us tonight. I took the liberty of ensuring he was otherwise engaged."

She did not like the sinister way her son had said the words. She brought her fingers to her lips in a thoughtless gesture, strangling a breath behind them, pressing her tense form further against the wall; Erik caught her eye and tipped his chin, and when she still did not lower her hand, he winked.

She had always detested that smile; like a demon, an unclean thing, grinning at her from the dark. She had not seen it since he was a very young child: Erik had quickly learned not to reveal it to her, or suffer the evening locked in the pantry, if only for Madeleine's reassurance that she knew precisely where he was.

She hated nothing more than to come upon him in the night. It had been her greatest terror these twenty years without him; knowing that the Devil could be waiting for her in any shadow––

As he was now, in the very room she had conceived him.

A shiver crept up her spine, tingling beneath her clothes, parting her lips and exiting her body in a ragged hiss; she wrapped her shawl tightly about her shoulders to bury her goose-fleshed skin beneath its warmth. Erik was watching her from aside the couch, his gloved fingers taut and straining in his grip on the back of the cushion.

"Mother," he started, stepping towards her. "Mother, I––"

Hastily casting her gaze to her feet, Madeleine stammered, interrupting his serpent's whisper, derailing whatever sick sound might spill from that viper's tongue, "are you not cold, Erik? Well. I am. Perhaps, then, it is time for bed. I am not as young as when you last knew me." For the sake of appearances and nothing more, she added, taking care to inflect her distaste in her tone, "what a pleasant surprise this has been, _son_. And after all this time. You may call on me, someday, if ever you are again in town. But for tonight––"

She let her words hang in the air before them, crackling much like the spent logs on the hearth; clasping both hands before her sinking stomach, she shot her gaze to the door, then to her slippered feet, hoping that the Devil would leave.

And leave her to God–– _please_ ––

But the Devil had other plans, it would seem. "Must we part after so short a visit?" he said lightly, after a moment's pause; Madeleine could still feel his evil stare upon her. "I would not dream of such a thing. Not on Christmas Eve, of all occasions." She blew a ragged breath between her teeth as Erik dropped bodily to the center of the velvet couch and patted the cushion to his side. "Come, sit with your son," he said, softly, "and if you are cold, let his company warm you."

"I am fine where I––"

Again he struck the velvet cushion with a palm, only once; Madeleine flinched and quieted, though her heartbeat throbbed like a drum in her chest. "Come, Mother," said the Devil, glaring at her from behind that unholy leather skin, " _sit._ "

She nodded and lowered her eyes.

When she had settled herself beside him, smoothing her skirts about her thighs and clasping her old woman's hands politely in her lap, she tipped her head in his direction, unable to meet his eye, and said to her fidgeting fingers, "why have you come, Erik?"

He shrugged, idly picking at the upholstery between them. "I was in town," he said, and Madeleine could detect a surprising note of nervousness in his manner, even as she struggled to steady her too-heavy breaths beside him, "related to _work_ , you see. And it would have been impolite not to call, I think…not today… on Christmas Eve."

"You might have sent a card instead," said Madeleine.

Erik gave no reply, but raised a hand between them, letting the leathered fingers twitch and curl in the air for a moment, as if they were their own repulsive, repellant creatures beneath that black skin. Then, with an intimacy so abrupt it forced a gasp from her lips, he took up both her trembling hands in his––one bare, one ominously jacketed––and brought them to his lips as Madeleine looked on in paralyzed horror; kissing her fingertips, gently at first, then arduously enough that he wet the skin, as he murmured against the numb flesh, "I have missed you, Mother, after all of these years. I only wanted to see you. I only wanted to feel the touch of these hands."

_From the lips of the sinner drip honey, and his speech is smoother than oil!_

She slid her fingers from his grip, and brought them to the arm rest at her side to curl tightly about the ornately carved final, just beyond his perverted reach. Staring at her lap, she watched the plush tops of her breasts swell traitorously beneath the rigid bodice she wore with every breath. "Mind your manners," she warned, though the voice that resonated in her ears shamed her, reedy and frail like the old woman she was.

Surely the Devil could hear her weakness.

Now he stroked at her shawl with the back of a finger, even as Madeleine tightened it about her shoulders. He brought his face close, too close, leaning into her as if he meant to sniff the knitted wrap; Madeleine twisted, coughed sternly, and said, "Erik, be a gentleman!"

She knew he was not capable of it. An animal could not pretend to be a man; he could only behave as the beast he was.

How could she expect anything more from the boy who had––oh, God, no, no, forgive her!

Now Erik straightened and fixed his discomfiting stare to hers; Madeleine felt the anxious heat rising to her ears, her cheek, warming her breast. He stared at her, silent, for several moments; then, he darted his Devil's tongue across his lips, wetting the twisted flesh, and asked,"do you think of me often, Mother?"

She could not bear to return that stare. Fixing her gaze to her fidgeting lap, she told him quietly, honestly, "I do."

"You do?" His surprise––and something else, something unreadable––was painted clearly across his face, even behind the shroud of his mask.

She gave a strangled cry as he slid a finger beneath her chin, guiding her gaze to his; when their eyes met––his, black, unblinking, somehow fire-bright in the enveloping darkness of the dim sitting-room; hers, surely watery, greyed with age and poor vision, weak, youthless, alien––Madeleine frowned, for as much as she wished to, she could not bring herself to pull away from the capture of that strange, powerful gaze. Now she was staring into the black depths of that plumbeous stare, deep into the bottomless oceans of those frightening, familiar eyes; her husband's, long gone––her unclean son's––and there was something of herself in them too, but the worst parts of her, the sins, the shame, the secrets she could not bear to see laid bare in those black caverns, so far to fall, so near to Hell. An unearthly hum had begun to cloud her ears, to slip into her consciousness, as the Devil tethered her there with his evil stare; now he was smiling his terrible smile, he was laughing, low and soft and cruel and much too-close, and then, as the breath rushed past her parted lips, he whispered, "good, Mother. Very, very good. I expected that it might work well on you."

She could smell the sour taint of alcohol on his forked tongue.

Without Madeleine's notice, Erik's fingers had swept along her arm and up her shoulder as he spoke. Her eyelids felt heavy, her breath slow, as her son dragged a palm up the base of her neck, behind her curls, goose-fleshing the exposed skin; she felt the slip of rough fabric drag her throat, her spine, as he slid her shawl from about her shoulders, to carelessly drape it over the back of the couch.

"Erik, what––" she heard herself speak, though the words felt faraway, clouded, forgotten. "No––"

"It's alright, Mother," murmured the Devil, breath moist against her almost-bare skin, as he coiled a ringlet between two long fingers and pressed it to his lips, "you do not need to be afraid. My touch is not a poison."

"I feel strange," she admitted, though the sensation of those fingers carefully winding in her hair set a pleasant quiver in the pit of her belly. Suddenly aware of the dry-ash taste in her mouth, she licked at her lower lip, as Erik followed the movement of her tongue with his heavy stare; the lock of her hair slid from between his fingers, to fall in place among the rest, teasing at the exposed flesh at the nape of her neck as a frissoning of fearful excitement crawled up her rigid spine, to exit her mouth in a whispering hiss.

"I mean you no ill, Mother," Erik continued, hot against the hollow of her collarbone as he slid his leather flesh against it, "you must believe this of me. It is only a simple trick, and it shall pass. Call it a Christmas gift; new eyes, for seeing your son with." One palm slid down her shape to wrap about the side of her waist, encircling her, tentatively, nervously at first, then binding her close, twisting her body towards his by the force of his hand in something of a hug, as he pressed his lips just above the embroidered neckline of her gown. He was humming, faintly, as he moved his mouth against her, anointing her neck, her shoulders, the top of her arm with the vibration of his enthralling song; his thumb followed his lips, sliding over her dampened flesh as if he meant to wipe the stain of his kiss from her skin.

His gaze was hazy, heavy when he again surfaced. Madeline whimpered, intoxicated by the implication of that stare, and Erik frowned; but just as quickly as the expression had darkened his face it was gone, and now his fingertips traced the curve of her throat, the angle of her jaw, the cup of her ear. He studied her with the same provocative absorption with which he had regarded the inanimate things about her home; he touched her now as if she were only an image, a sculpture of herself, an effigy to the Mother he wished he had. Madeleine could feel his reverence in the bare, nervous touch of his Devil's mouth against her throat.

"You must be nearly fifty now, Mother," he said quietly, brushing the pads of his fingers over her cheek as his lips dragged her stiffening jawline; intoxicated, unable to resist––for that enthralling, inescapable sound still resonated all around her, inside her––she cast her gaze to the window, its little candle still sputtering on the sill, as his thumb traced the bow of her lip, dragging against the tender skin. Pressing her deeper into the cushions, his hand at her waist squeezed her tightly enough to force her gasp. "And yet you look just as I remember you," he muttered, glancing down to the place where his fingers bruised her skin, "when I was a boy, Madeleine, I thought you must be the most beautiful woman in the world." He was stroking her heavily, carelessly now, overtop her trembling belly, as he again met her eye and whispered, "did you know that I thought so highly of you?"

_Her children rise up and call her blessed; her husband also, and her son will praise her!_

"Yes, Erik. I knew," breathed his mother, then gave a strangled whimper as his finger pushed her lips apart to brush against the fronts of her occluded teeth. His eyes narrowed, intently following his actions; he gave a low growl, lips twisting in something of a snarl. Dazed, Madeleine stared at his strange expression––she could not look away––even as his thumb broke between her teeth to sweep the tip of her tongue, and the tendons in his straining throat jumped and pulled at his translucent flesh. Her son appeared to be in pain; now, though his invading finger warped and wetted her words, she asked him, for it felt like the overwhelming music was suggesting the unnatural question, demanding the words be spoken, "Erik, do you want me to––"

He cut her off, his demon's voice gruff, wild, as he pushed her deeper into the cushions beneath him. "Would you believe I still have never met a woman who can compare to you?" he said, urgently, breathing the words against her captured cheek, "and I have met a great deal of women, Mother. Holy women, like you, and many… less holy. Even a queen, of a sort, if you can believe it." As he spoke, the fingers of his gloved hand curled about her chin to hold her face steady as he slid his thumb deeper between her lips, battling it against her wriggling tongue; in a gesture that could mean nothing to Madeleine other than what this Devil made clear, he thrust the finger within her again, again, eyes black behind that horrible mask as he looked on, panting softly before her; until to stop the drool from pouring from her mouth she had to tighten her lips about his invading thumb in a tight o. As soon as she had, meeting his eye and sucking gently at his leather flesh, pulling him deeper into her mouth and wrapping her tongue about him, her son groaned throatily and tore his finger from her.

"Mother," he panted, breaking the spell, leaden gaze heavy behind the lifeless shroud of the mask he wore, "Mother…I did not mean to…"

But she could not bear his stare or the slick, evil thrill which had slid, unwelcome, between her thighs––for the Devil reserves his sickest temptations for the godliest of women, this, Madeleine knew well––and so, in a rush of silk-taffeta and lace she stood, swept purposefully to the dessert-table, and pouring herself a cup of spiced tea that hardly warmed the porcelain, she moved to the hearth. Clutching at the mantle, white-fingered and trembling, she brought the cold drink to her lips, rattling the cup in its delicate saucer as she stared into the flames.

From his seat on the couch, wide, sharp shoulders slightly hunched with his palms flat against the cushions at either side of him, Erik watched her move about the room. His utter shamelessness regarding his own obscene display fascinated her, disgusted her; the straining fabric between his spread thighs, the evidence of his discretion, drew her eye like a beacon. She could not look away from that filthy thing like another demon, fighting to break free of its cloth prison––

She had felt his corrupting fingers against her skirt as she rose, suggestively brushing the curve of her thigh to her rear and dipping, unfathomably, between the cleft of her legs; the hidden flesh burned beneath the layers of silk and cotton as if his hands were still upon it.

"Mother, what is it?" came the low, even voice behind her, the Devil whispering again from the pit. Mock concern stained that hated voice as he added, gently, again flexing that sickening, gloved hand before him, the very hand that had slid between her thighs, "what has you so agitated? Are you not glad to bear witness to the return of the prodigal?"

She glared into the dancing flames, crashing her teacup too-loudly on the mantle and sloshing most of its cold contents from within it, to drip from the boughs of pine-greenery which adorned the wood, and hissed, her words breathless, shrill, "you should never have come here, Erik! You do better to keep away!"

"Why, Mother? he asked, and she heard the even slip of his fine garments against the velvet upholstery as he rose to stand. "Have you not missed your only son?"

"You are not my son!" she spat, clutching at her abdomen with a palm in a failing attempt at collecting herself, "you have been sent here to test me, to ruin me! The Devil, you are, you foul thing. I knew it as soon as I birthed you! I knew it––"

"Mother, you alarm me. What must you think of me? I seek only the pleasure of your company, on Christmas, after spending half a lifetime apart."

"No," she stammered, refusing to look at him though she felt his evil presence only steps behind her, the heat of that sick shadow between his thighs, "Erik, I know you, I know––"

His tone darkened. "What do you know?"

"God loves me," she said weakly, "I have been forgiven! Devil, spare me, please––"

But a quiet humming had begun to fill her ears, bothersome, like the whirring of a fly; absently, Madeleine swatted at the sound aside her head. She heard the Devil laugh softly behind her. Now she spun, glaring up at his impressive height, and hissed, to his bemused expression, "do not use that damned voice on me, Satan! I know what you do! Oh, Father, protect me!"

"Ah, but I have learned a great many more tricks than I ever knew before, Mother," he replied, his voice as soft, as seductive as silk, though the evil tune had for the moment quieted, "wouldn't you like to see what your boy can do?"

And then it began anew, a symphony of soft, breathless sound, disarming and confusing her, even as the Devil captured her stare in his; she staggered on her slippered feet. But he was already standing just before her; now, bringing his mismatched hands to her shoulders, he seized her, and silently, sadly, he smiled that demon's smile. "It is better this way, Mother," he said, though Madeleine found it difficult to focus on the words; she fixed her stare to his malformed mouth, trying to make sense of his corrupting speech as he added, "you do not need to be afraid."

Perhaps it was that last cup of tea, too late in the evening, or the marzipan she had eaten only an hour before, but now a dull, throbbing ache was teasing behind her heavy eyelids, blurring her already-fading vision and making her feel nauseated, feverish; as the room spun about her, all red and gold and green, and the fire sparked orange lights at her feet, Madeleine whispered, urgently, "I need to go to bed. I need to forget this, Erik. Forget you… " Her voice had begun to waver; now it cracked as she continued, digging her fingernails into her skirts, "I want you to go from here. This is not your home; it never was. Do not return again! Go!"

"So now my dear mother speaks her truth, does she?" began her son, though Madeleine could still hear that provocative humming in his measured words, "I was nearly convinced of your charade when you sat beside me––but I am not so foolish as to believe you might do such a thing out of affection for your progeny! See, I have tools, Mother, that I might use to my advantage, and I am grown, and strong! I shall not allow you to reject my wishes now!"

"You have done something to me, Devil. You are vexing me, somehow," Madeleine sputtered, attempting to swat at him, but his iron grip held her steady, pinching into the fat of her upper arms. He stood close enough that his legs were pressed against her skirts, carving two hollows in the protective fabric; the hard stone of his sex teased at her stomach. "Please," she told him, when his palms had begun to slide heavily down her taffeta arms, "please, Erik, what have you come here for? I was free of you! You mustn't! I won't––" But the same strange vibration still whispered in her ear, immuring her in inescapable sound––coaxing the words she hated to speak from within her, warming the slick flesh between her thighs, wrapping its numbing tones about her heart, her belly, and parting her lips–– "I have always known you would return for me," she breathed, eyes downcast and fluttering, as if she revealed her deepest secret, "I have waited, these eighteen years, for you to come. How I hate to see you here, like the Angel of Death, like Lucifer himself, come to claim my soul!" Her arms jerked beneath his hold as she attempted, absently, to cross herself. "Erik, my boy, my little Devil. I wish to God I had never birthed you. I wish I had smothered you before you took your first breath!"

Erik blinked, frowned. "Must you forever think so poorly of me? I mean you no harm," he promised her, pressing her arms close against her sides; if he should have released her she would have fallen to her knees before him. "It is a simple request I ask of you now. Such a little thing, for a mother to give her child––"

"Get away from me, Devil, I beg of you, go!" Hot, hopeless tears had begun to sting at her cheeks; she could not resist him, she could not deny him. God, forgive her! The Devil was much too strong, and she was, as ever, a weak-willed woman––

"I only want a kiss, Mother." His voice was soft, his face close. His sour breath stung at her nostrils; she already tasted the stink of him in her mouth. "One kiss, that you have always refused me. Call it a birthday gift. A Christmas present, anything. Just let me have this, this one, small thing, after thirty years of _wanting_ ––"

"I cannot," she breathed, though the music still enveloped her; it would be so easy, to surrender into its hold, so easy, to follow the Devil to temptation, and still she fought for her salvation, pinching her eyelids tightly shut against the depravity of enticing sin, "Erik, you mustn't ask this of me!"

"Truly? You cannot deliver a single kiss? I could make you do it, Mother. I could force you! Is it not better to _want_ to love me?"

"You will damn me with this! Please!"

"I am a boy no longer. I will not beg you for it, not again. But it is only one kiss, and after I have had it of you, if you still want me to, I will go. How many men have you let share your lips? I am your own, your boy, please––" He stiffened; the desperation that had stained his shrouded features was wiped away in a breath. "However much you despise me, however disgusted you are by me, submit to this, Mother––these foul, repulsive lips on yours for less than an instant––and you will never have to see me again."

"Away, Devil," she stammered, weakly, watching his eyes narrow to black slits before her. He must know she could no longer fight him. He must smell it on her. "Oh, away––"

He silenced her with the barest touch of his hand at the base of her chin, tilting her face to meet his, and sighed. "One kiss," he repeated, staring; after an instant which felt to Madeleine an eternity, he shut his eyes and pressed his lips to hers.

The kiss was dry, closed-mouthed, and sweet; the precise sort a small boy might give to his mother. When it was done, Erik pulled away quickly, eyes downcast, and slid his tongue over his bottom lip. Madeleine had parted her lips as he kissed her; they hung open still, as she hissed a breath between them, and the Devil squared his chin to capture her gaze.

For several moments he watched her, frozen where she stood, as Madeleine eyed him unsteadily; finally, he said to her, his voice low, as if he were anxious to know her answer, afraid: "do you want me to go, Mother?"

"Yes," she swore, looking up through her eyelashes. The weight of her head had become too heavy, she did not have the strength to sustain it as it slumped to her shoulders; now the Devil's cold leather hand was slipping beneath her curls, to steady her floundering skull by the base of her neck, to draw it close to his own even as she resisted him. That dreadful hum was rising again from the pit, twisting its evil fingers inside her ears and about her throat, as Erik bent forward to again press his masked face to hers, longer this time, lips barely parted, as the deafening hum sung around them, distracting, calming, numbing, its roborant tones supplanting her, steadying her, giving her strength again to stand––and now, with purpose, she swept her searching fingers about the Devil's back, stroking at his spine, pulling him to her flesh, pressing her body close, parting her thighs to open herself to him until he whimpered against her lips; and as he broke from her, she stammered, looking into his astonished expression, "Erik––oh––"

She felt a chill where their bodies had separated. His expression changed, frightened her, despite her clouded mind; there was something feral in it, something dangerous, as he wet his mouth with his tongue. Breath hot on her lips, he brushed his mouth overtop hers, as if he were an animal taking her scent; he kissed her again, once, twice, soft, dry touches to the corners of her mouth, and slid his palms––one gloved, one naked––into her hair, loosing the pins, tumbling her curls down her back, again repeating the damning words, his siren's voice heavy with something Madeleine did not dare to think on, "Mother, do you want me to go?"

And then her eyes were closing as the music slid within her, drowning out all other sound, even the thrumming of her beating heart, even the hissing of her ragged breaths; "no," she whispered, as the Devil's lips closed over her throat, as his forked tongue slid, heavy, wet, into the tremulous hollow there, "no, no," she repeated, until his mouth found hers again, and he silenced her stammering words with the heat of his tongue.

She panted against him as he kissed her, hard, pulling her body to his by his grasp about her forearms; soon his palms were dragging overtop her, tracing up the length of her spine, the base of her neck, tangling in her fallen curls. As if he meant to stroke every part of her, as if he could not determine where to do so first, his thrilling fingers swept her throat, her shoulders, her chest, as his tongue searched in her mouth, and he whimpered into her kiss, "Mother," he whined, as his palms found the smooth curve of her hip, the fat flesh of her rear and he groped her, squeezed her, crushed her tightly against him, "Mother, Mother, please––"

Madeleine slackened into his touches, allowing him to pull her body close to his; groaning, she felt the soft crush of her breasts as they met his sturdy chest, felt the hard press of him, obscene, desirous, against her lower belly––

The music was freeing; the music filled her with the memory of a life, long-ago lost in this prison of a sitting-room. She did not fear the Devil pressing his mouth to hers, tasting her, drinking of her, as he slid his tongue over the backs of her teeth: she desired him, his sin, his temptation. She had spent a lifetime resisting his wicked promises, ignoring his Satan's seductions––suffering, alone, in fear and hatred and denial. But this, the music told her, this was love, good, sacred love––

And how the Devil loved her. Even as a boy, he had padded at her skirts, tugged on her hems, slipped his fingers in her hair as she slept on the couch, and she had always punished him for it. It terrified her, the feel of those Devil's fingers on any part of her.

But it was his music––that immodest, rapturous music––which had frightened her most of all.

Sometimes, at night, he would crawl into her bedroom and sing to her as she slept, curled with his arms about his knees as he sat against the foot of her large, mahogany bed, as if it were the only gift he could think to offer her, the only gift he thought that she might accept. She knew the Devil had been in him then; that voice was not pure, not good, not innocent! Oh, God, how it had seared her flesh, set her fingers to all manner of sins––

She was nearly asleep. She could not have known. She never would have––she was a good woman, a God-fearing woman!

But she could not stop herself, that first, hot, stifling, midsummer night as she lay restless in her bed, drunk on his Devil's music whirling in the heavy air, from pulling up her nightgown, from shoving the fabric overtop her swollen breasts; the evil noise bade her do it, the Devil inside the boy! It was only the music she could hear, only that blissful promise, that euphoric salvation in that sea of sound: she thought nothing of her son. She had never considered his being there. She would swear it to herself for the rest of her days––

And when she had finished, panting into the pillows, sheets tangled about her naked legs as warm, heavy liquid slid pleasantly from her sated sex and into the cleft of her rear to stain the sheets beneath her, she stroked her wet, sticky fingers over her softly hairy mound, up her trembling, sweating belly and over her tender, naked breasts, writhing into her own caresses; and as her fingers slid low to slip inside herself again, again, harder, again, pounding–– _yes, Devil_ ––she turned her head, and caught the shape of him in the moonlight, eyes bright behind the terrible mask as he watched her from her bedside.

'Mother,' he breathed, twisting his small fingers together before him, as her breath stopped in her heaving chest, 'did you like it? I wrote it for you––'

Then he reached out to her, his child's fingers as vile, as disgusting as they appeared to her now, to touch his cold flesh to the heat of her naked thigh, to stroke the shuddering flesh, but it was too much, it was just enough, and the hated, horrible release tore through her, just as he captured her eye behind that perverted black shroud––

She had screamed then, a terrifying wail, loud enough to send all the servants running; she could hear their thunderous footsteps in the hall and on the stair even as she flung herself at the boy, striking him across the mouth with the back of her hand and sending him stumbling to the ground. Tearing the blankets and sheets from the bed to fling about her naked flesh she roared at him as he cowered beneath her, tears streaming from the eye-holes of his unholy mask, 'little Devil! You foul, horrid, wicked little beast! Godless thing, how _dare_ you! _How dare you!_ '

And then, as a footman and the maid burst through the bedroom door, Madeleine was beating the sobbing child on the ground, terror painted over her face and his, screaming, her words shrill and senseless, as her servants fought to tear her from him, 'get him from me! Lock him in the cellar, drown him in the well! May I never see your horrid face again! May I never hear your Devil's voice!' Panting wildly, naked chest heaving like a dying beast's, Madeleine collapsed to the floor on her knees as the maid shuttled the bleeding child from the room; pointing weakly, the blankets in a loose heap around her knees as the footman looked on, wearing an odd expression, she called after the fleeing child, 'that's right… that's right… send him to Hell where he belongs… '

She had barred her door after that: a deadbolt and a lock. But the boy had always been skilled at getting into places he was not allowed, and Madeleine rarely slept.

That voice would find her even in her dreams.

And it is so easy to sin when the sun is asleep, when only the Devil can see.

Now, nearly twenty years since she had last heard his horrible voice, the little Devil kissed her; as that delicious hum, that intoxicating whisper, again heated her flesh. How strange, what bodies can remember, even when the mind wills that they do not––

Erik had pushed her up against the front of the desk; Madeleine heard a clatter as her son flung her writing stool aside with a fist. He crushed her to him, palms like vices behind her throat and at the base of her spine, and the tips of his fingers digging hard into her soft, yielding flesh, as he pressed himself against her skirts; she spread her thighs eagerly, expectantly, as his hand slid from her back to grip her thigh beneath her rear, and ease her body against his. Half sitting on the little writing desk, Madeleine let him wrap her leg about his hip, listening to his whimpering groans as he ground himself into her heat; "Mother, please," he whispered, and the sound was the sweetest, most sacred, most prurient tune she had ever heard, "Mother, Mother, Mother––"

The constant, arousing fear that once ached in the pit of her stomach, sickening her, now thrummed there pleasantly, overwhelmingly, exciting and stimulating; _let it all go,_ it told her, _forget, forget, and love––_

Madeleine knew how to love. She had loved Caroline's father, the Devil's father; she had loved him with her flesh. Right here, in this very sitting-room, they had fallen to the floor before the hearth once, giggling like children, as the snow fell outside the darkened windows just as it did tonight. Soon their games had turned to caresses, touches, sighs; and when he entered her, she had felt the warm breath of the fire on her bare flesh.

Madeleine knew how to love.

And the Devil loved her very much.

Still his song whispered, agreed, _love, love, only love––_

Now her hot fingers slid between the rocking crush of them to cup him, stroke him, wrap about him there, and his mouth opened wide and groaning against hers, as he pushed into her fingers, into their loving embrace––no, no, not like that, not to your son, screamed a secret voice, chanting, waking her from her pleasant daze; and now the voice was getting louder, screeching, wailing in her clouded ear: your son, your son, foul sinner, your son!

_For what they have done is a perversion; their blood will be on their own hands––_

"Get off of me, you Demon!" Madeleine cried, suddenly, jarring the Devil who held her; his bruising fingers froze, tensed and spread, about the sides of her form.

"Mother?" he breathed, his dark gaze clouded; then, as Madeleine looked on, staring into his Devil's eyes, they narrowed, and something like terror flashed behind the black mask, but just as quickly as it had come, it was gone.

She thrust her palms against his sturdy chest to shove him from her, but he gripped her hard about her upper arms, just beneath the sweating pits, pressing his body against her like an immovable force, and her further into the writing-desk as she stammered, "I cannot understand how––I would never, _never!_ ––oh, no––" Ignoring her confusion, he pressed his lips to the bare, exposed flesh above her neckline and slid his tongue along the edge of the fabric, letting his teeth drag the flesh beneath as Madeleine struggled against him, hissing, "let go! Let go of me, Erik!"

He raised his face from her chest to capture her stare. "Mother, calm yourself," he said, his panting breaths staining his words. Though all the fingers of his naked hand dug into the soft flesh of her bicep, now he slid a palm down the curve of her belly, watching as the pressure of his glove warped and shivered the fine silk, as if he considered what lay beneath the fabric; the embroidered neckline of her gown was stained with his spit. "Is it fitting for a son to be more collected than his parent?"

"Erik, it isn't right, what you have come here for––"

"And what is that, Mother?" he spat, acidly. His gloved fingers had slid over her hip to take up a fistful of her skirts; now he released the wrinkled silk, to fall again about her ankles. "It has been near-two decades since I was last in France. Truly, have you never once missed your son? Have you never thought of him alone out there? I expect all your letters and gifts were unfortunately lost! I never do stay in one place long, I fear." He slid the back of two fingers over her heated cheek; Madeleine flinched and shied from the gesture. "I have come only to be reunited with you, to show you how much I have loved you," he said, black eyes like fire, as his hand fell again to his side, and he took a short step backwards to allow her again to stand, fists still wrapped about her arms, "to tell you how often you are in my thoughts, and nothing more."

"Curse your evasive tongue. You know of what I speak! It is unholy!" Madeleine stammered, still padding at her son's immovable front to push him further from her, until they both were standing, still too-close, before the disordered desk. To say the words herself was to admit to them; she could not, and keep her soul. The demanding heat between her thighs disgusted her, excited her––she could still taste the sour salt of the Devil's tongue on her lips, as she hissed up at him, "you seek to damn me!"

"Do I? Have you not done the thing already yourself? You have kissed me, Mother, and not how one should kiss a boy!" Between them, his erection was potent, obvious, even beneath the cloak of his tautened trousers. Madeleine noticed one of the many buttons of his fly was unfastened, and his dress shirt pulled, slightly, from under his waistband; surely she could not have––

But Erik laughed, softly, watching Madeleine stare at his arousal; now he dug his fingers into her upper arms, saying darkly, "you know I could never resist even the barest touch from your loving hands."

"Which is why I never touched you!" she spat, twisting and fighting his hold, even as his grip bruised her weakened muscle. "You were a sick child, as you have clearly become an even sicker adult! God abandoned you long ago, for desiring what you did of me!"

"What was that, Mother?" he growled, "say it! _Say it!"_

She could not.

"Damn you for all of it," he hissed under his breath, glaring down at her, his Devil's eyes bright and watered, "you evil, miserable woman! Curse your distorted mind! Why must you make me do this to you––"

And then the fear was again washed away, the hate, as Madeleine felt the tension ease from her face, and a pleasant, tingling numbness replace it; she smiled, as her son watched her curiously, studiously, his ruined, wet-shining lips moving as if he were deep in prayer.

What Hellish symphony was this! Madeleine moaned into the pleasure of the sound, as the Devil's music again filled her, deeper, fuller than before; she threw her head back, feeling her curls tumbling down her back and over her spit-stained skin, as the music throbbed in the core of her. Now she was stroking at herself, caressing her own curves to that salvific rhythm, as Erik considered her, eyes half closed but bright.

He released his hold on her arms; his hands fell, slack and open at his sides. "How do you feel, Mother?"

She smiled, eyeing him hazily. "Dizzy, Devil," she started, with some effort, "I admit I do feel peculiar… did you… no… I must have eaten something strange… "

"Ah, yes," he said mildly, a strange expression shadowing his exposed features, "that is a common side effect, I fear, but harmless, none-the-less. What I have planned will not take long." He sighed. "Perhaps you should sit down?"

"Oh. Perhaps," she managed. Her fingertips trailed absently down the front of his chest, overtop the lapel of his jacket; she felt him stiffen at her easy touch. "Little Devil, little Devil," she chanted, mindlessly, "yes, I believe I need to sleep."

Carefully taking up her wrists in both hands, Erik guided her to sit again on the couch; as she looked on uncertainly, he slid his long fingers about her ankles to curl her legs atop the cushion, arranging her in a stilted approximation of the comfortable position she spent most evenings reclined in, with her bible balanced in her lap before it slid to the floor. Could he have remembered how she would spend her nights? No––

Blinking mildly, Madeleine watched as the Devil dropped to the cushion beside her. He slid to his hip, then to his side––how strange, for a grown man to recline thus––and arranged himself across her, bent like a little boy with his head in her lap, his knees pressed into the rear cushion, and his uncannily long legs spread down the full length of the couch, still in his evening shoes.

"Little Devil," she said, as her son curled against her, "why do you do this to your mother?"

"I want you to love me," he said softly from her lap, his words muffled by the silk balloon of her skirts as he spoke against her belly, that demon's voice sounding low and soft from his throat like a curse, like Satan himself still whispering in her ear, "kiss my cheek and brush my hair; only for tonight; love me, however you think you can."

"Yes," she breathed, running a palm up the base of his neck and into his hair, as he whimpered like a child in her lap, shuddering into her touch, "yes, Devil."

She felt the shift in him as he moved against her, pressing his face into her skirts even as she stroked his skull, raked her fingers through his hair; with a gasp she understood that he was kissing her there, pressing his open lips and tongue to the fine silk, reverently crushing his ugly skull into the fabric even as her hips, senselessly, rolled against his chin, and her thighs parted for his mouth to push between. "Erik," she warned, feeling the heat of his breath as it slid beneath her skirts to tease her like a sin, feeling the moisture of his spit on the silk as he sucked at her, pressed his tongue against her, "oh, God," she moaned, helpless, as his hands crept beneath her rear to press her flesh against his open mouth, and his hips writhed meaningfully on the cushion beside her, the barest hint of moisture staining the wool of his fly, "Erik, I do not think you should––Erik, no––"

And still he kissed her thighs, her sex, her belly, as Madeleine groaned, weakly against him. Sliding his hot palms from her hips, over her trembling abdomen and toward her chest he dragged himself forward, folding his curled body into hers; and now his hands were rounding her breasts, squeezing, stroking, slipping beneath the neckline of her gown, with his ruined mouth following closely after, pressing soft, obscene kisses to the overflowing flesh.

Madeleine watched in numb horror as her son eased apart the neckline of her dress, long fingers flicking at the buttons as if it he only required the barest brush of contact to unfasten them; soon her bodice was split about her front, revealing the intricate ribbon embroidery of her corset cover, sheer to her corset beneath. She gasped, reaching a palm down her front to cover herself; but the Devil captured her about her wrist, forcing her unsteady fingers again to her sides, his tainted breath hot against her exposed skin; then he released her. Madeleine's hands trembled uselessly in front of her as he eased her top over her shoulders and down her arms.

"I only want to look," he said, so quietly that she could scarcely make out the ragged words, "I only want to see you as you were when I was born."

She watched the garment fall to the floor at her feet, hearing the Devil's low, inhuman humming as it echoed in her skull; bobbing slackly against the cushions with the force of his manipulation, she felt the soft cotton of the corset cover tear, as he pulled the fabric apart, and the cold breath of air as he took both sides of the constricting garment in his mismatched fists and rent it apart by its metal placket.

Her chemise was thin, with wide shoulders and narrow straps made of ribbon lace; Erik slid it from her shoulders easily, dragging the sheer fabric down to hang about her hips like an apron. The cold swept her skin like a kiss, as her son's immoral gaze heated her nakedness; "Erik, don't," she whispered, even as she gave a softly keening sound and arched her back towards him, senselessly seeking his halting touch.

"I have seen you bare, before, Mother," he said quietly, as something betraying his reserve for saying so touched his words, that same childish reticence he would exhibit when he knew he was to be punished for his impishness as a boy, "I watched men kiss you, here," he brushed a fingertip across her bare nipple, "when you should have been sharing your milk with me."

"I could not allow the Devil to drink from me," breathed Madeleine, as he lowered his mouth to her naked skin, to slide his tongue about the nipple. She shuddered and bucked against him; the sensitive flesh puckered and went rigid, readying itself for his lips. "You had goats milk to sire yourself on, boy, like the creature you are–– _oh_ ––"

Erik appeared not to hear her; now he laughed, softly, to see the response of her flesh. "I wonder," he said in a low, tempting voice, the sound crawling beneath Madeleine's hot flesh, "did your tits excite so to feed my sweet sister? Or do they respond such just for me, Mother?"

Madeleine groaned, throatily, into the Devil's touch. "Sick words," she muttered, her mind a haze of sound and sinful pleasure, "oh, sick, sick…"

"These old teats are long dried, I fear," Erik continued, ignoring her words as he cupped her breast in his gloved hand, wetting the skin with a touch of his lips, "but their service is long overdue, Mother." He pulled a nipple between two fingers as Madeleine chewed her lip to strangle the whine his gesture coaxed from within her. "You could make it up to me."

She managed, weakly, "Erik, wait," as she stared down at her heaving, naked chest, fearing the unholy ache that had begun to pulse and thrill between her thighs, just below the damning weight of the Devil, the incubus on her lap, "wait." But again he met her eyes, gazing into them, overwhelming them with his stare, as that damning hum slid beneath her skirts and into her skull; she trembled, mewled against his exploring fingers, rocked her hips into his weight on her lap––

"Erik, please, it's sick," she heard herself beg, but her voice was heavy, and her eyes were falling shut––

And then the heat of his lips upon her overwhelmed her, as she sagged into the couch cushions, watching through her eyelashes as the Devil sucked at her teat, loudly, lewdly, moaning against her; "Mother, Mother," he mouthed into her flesh, clawing his fingers up her chest to grip her other breast in a fist, even as his drooling mouth opened wider against her, pulling and sucking the whole of her tit between his teeth. And it was a sin, the foulest of sins: she groaned, throatily, throwing her head back against the headrest in surrender, as her son's forked tongue flicked over her pointed nipple.

That sound, like the crackling of the fire in the grate, no, like the hum of a breath and beating hearts and blood, no, but something like music, though no human music, was still pounding in her ears, deafening her, overpowering her, even as Erik slid his tongue across the fleshy tops of her breasts; she felt its meaningful vibration on her sweating flesh.

"Mother," he whispered against her skin, "Mother, love me, Mother, please..."

Now, as the music commanded, she eased her fingers into his hair, guiding and soothing his head at her teat; for the gentle weight of his body in her lap was more than a comfort, and immured in the maddening echo of that strange music, she did not find it strange at all that it was her grown, hated son who sucked her dried-up and wasted milk from within her.

Madeleine remembered the lovely child who had come before him, the little girl, with a face just like hers, who died in her mother's arms three weeks after she had borne her. The little Devil had never drunk from her; after Caroline, she could not bear the thought of his warped mouth upon her, or the knowledge that the food he stole had been meant for another.

But now, she nursed him; the music bade her so, and she was his Mother, after all.

_Can a mother forget her nursing child? Can she feel no love for the child she has borne?_

As a boy, she had hated him; feared him; she never touched him, if doing so could be avoided.

Why was she touching him now?

_Come near to God and he will come near to you. Wash your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded._

_Put to death, whatever belongs to your earthly nature: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires and greed, which is idolatry!_

_Or do you not know that wrongdoers will not inherit the kingdom of God?_

"Stop singing," she panted, pushing weakly at his skull with her fingertips, "I hear you, Devil… stop that singing…"

But he ignored her; Satan had no want of her pleas. Still the intoxicating sound slid from between his closed lips, to envelop her, enervate her: "I know what you are," she warned him, "I always knew!" and still her thighs parted about his advancing form as he arranged himself overtop her, still her back arched into the caress of his gloved hand over her breast, her belly, her hip; and when he rocked himself against the core of her, pressing the heavy heat of him between her thighs, she groaned, and wrapped her hands about his shoulders. Oh, temptation, oh, Devil take her, deliver her, free her!

"Mother," he whispered, suddenly, almost nervously, against the bare, sticking skin of her chest, "Mother, there is no milk for me. I am thirsty. Will you help your son? He needs you. Will you make him a cup of tea?"

Madeleine stared down at the Devil, his anxious fingertips prodding thoughtlessly at her tit. She recognized the look in her son's twisted eyes; he expected to be punished for the question. "Why would you ask me such a thing?" she said finally, arching her back into his absent caress, "the tea is right there on the table. You know how to serve yourself."

His lip twisted; it curled down at the corners in a hard line as he gazed up at Madeleine. Soon his caresses began anew, harder, with less restraint than before; he stroked at her, sucked at her throat, her bare flesh, as Madeleine moaned and pushed her body into his touch. Dragging his palm down the trembling flesh of her naked belly and overtop her disheveled skirts, he forced his fingers into the silk v of her thighs to roll the pads against her sex, hard and with unmistakeable intention; searching out the plush shape of her atop the fabric, he worked his fingers between her concealed folds until he touched upon the place he sought, and Madeleiene cried out, thrusting helplessly into his touch––

"Foul, evil little Devil," she groaned against him, capturing his stare. Though her eyelids felt heavy and her body shuddered for him, she had to tell him, had to remind him of what he was; "yes, oh God––do it, you repulsive, inhuman creature. You know what you came here for––"

"Mother, please," he whispered, his eyes searching hers, as his fingers beat against her. Madeleine cried out and he frowned. "Mother, stop..."

"You are sick, twisted as your repulsive flesh," she growled, feeling the rhythm in the Devil's fingers, working her hips in tandem with him, "God closed his eyes on the day you were born, you accident, you malformed waste of blood and brains. Your father's seed was wasted in you!"

"Mother, no..."

And then she was moaning against him, groaning breathlessly in his ear as the Devil moved against her. The wet stain of his temptation soaked through the silk taffeta of her skirts, dampening her thighs and the front of his trousers; in the heavy silence of the room she could hear the obscene sound of her own moisture, slick against his fingers as Erik worked at her, panting above her, every muscle in his long body tense and straining as he braced himself against the soft couch cushion, leaning over her naked front as his arm shuddered with his effort, pushing hard, unrelenting circles between his mother's thighs; and then she had her fingernails buried in his shoulder, twisting into the heavy fabric of his jacket as she called out, cried out, "Devil, Devil, Devil!"

As soon as he had finished, he wiped his soaked fingers on the couch and shifted against her to press his weight on a single palm; Madeleine sagged on the cushion beneath him, gazing hazily into the dark holes of his demon's mask, as he glowered down upon her, thin lips twisted in a dangerous scowl. She could feel the hard weight of his cock against her thigh; she wanted to see how much he had grown––

His evil voice was rough when he next spoke, though his eyes were red and shining behind the mask."I came here to claim your love, foul woman. Your love for a son! But this is all you can offer me? This is all you are capable of?" He gripped her breast, hard, digging the fingers into the soft flesh, glaring into her sapphic face; then with his gloved palm, he shoved her thighs further apart. As he pushed the voluminous, stained silk of her skirts roughly up her stockinged legs, Madeleine shifted mindlessly beneath him, easing his body between her spread legs, rolling her spine against the soft cushions to press herself to the warmth of him; he groaned weakly––as if he attempted to resist the sensation––as she ground her core to his. He gave a snort, frowning down at her writhing body, her bare, spit soaked tits with their swollen, suckled-purple nipples, the ruddy heat that crept like a stain across her chest. "No...it isn't right," he breathed, watching her, meeting her wavering gaze as her lashes fluttered shut, "you were not meant to…not like this…"

Then he slid a palm across her cheek to gently cup her face and draw her close. Her lips were ready when he brought his mouth to hers, kissing her softly, gently, lovingly; panting, she forced his lips to part, seeking his tongue eagerly and slipping her own against it. Soon she was writhing beneath him, groaning into his kiss, as she wound her fingers in his hair and crushed his leather flesh to hers; he broke from her to rasp, wetly, against her open mouth, as her tongue flicked at his lips, wanting his, "Mother, is this truly the only way that you can love me?"

"Yes, Devil," she panted, eyeing him unsteadily; capturing his skull by her fingers twisted in his hair, she pulled his resisting face close as he glared at her through the dark holes of his mask.

"Love me, then," he breathed, on a ragged exhale, surrendering, as his lips closed over hers.

The fire burned, too-hot between her thighs, that flame of Hell, dancing and devouring like dead trees in the streets, the night after Christmas, as she ground her hips against him. Sensing her need, her desire, her obscene hunger, the Devil gripped her hard beneath her thighs, dragging her unresisting body beneath him such that he loomed overtop her in a feral crouch, crushing his shape to hers to rub that filth, that steaming evil of his foul sex against her; and she was pulling up her skirts just as his palm was dragging low, she was spreading her thighs to wrap about his back as his wolves teeth chewed again at her teat, and his fingers crept beneath the silk––

"Mother," he groaned against her skin, "oh, no, Mother, Mother––"

And now she sold herself to him, she surrendered; " _yes,_ Devil," she whispered into his ear as her hot breath wet his skin, "yes, yes," as she slid her mindless fingers down between the crush of their bodies, to cup his rigid sex in her palm, to stroke his length atop the damp fabric as he breathed her name above her; she kissed his leather cheek, his throat, his ear as her expert fingers freed his hot cock from within his cloth prison. Her son, her son, her son, screamed an imprisoned voice within her, oh, God, her son, the Devil, her son––

But she could not hear it over the perfect music, still echoing in her ears.

_We love because he first loved us._

_We love because he is love._

Erik groaned into her touch and in that haze of senseless desperation she thought she heard him sob against her, his ragged breaths stinging her flesh as she pumped his demon's instrument in her fist––but no, no, her son had not the capacity for such a human action, her son was no boy but a Devil––and now he was grinding against her, driving his needy cock into the embrace of her fist as she panted beneath him, as she said again to him, hazily, "yes, little Devil, filthy, repulsive Devil. I know what you came for, what you always desired of me. I know what you wanted to take from me then!"

His fingers paused in their climb of her thigh, just before the v of her sex. The leather tips teased at the soft hairs crowning her cunt; Madeleine shuddered, rolling her hips into his touch, willing the Devil to enter her, take her, consume her––

"You cannot want this," he breathed, watching her, "why must you speak so? I am your son, woman. Is this what it means to be a mother?" Then his eyes closed as if in pain, as he groaned out a helpless, throaty sound, as Madeleine slid her thumb inside his foreskin, to circle the sensitive underside of his cock-tip.

She eyed him through her lashes as if she knew what her touch had brought him to. "Fuck me, little Devil," she taunted, hissing between her teeth, though her voice was nothing like her own, "fuck your mother, like you want to!"

Above her Erik was frowning, staring into her unsteady gaze, flickering and blurring above her; he winced as she absently pumped him in her fist. "Wait, please," he breathed, digging his sweating fingertips into the soft flesh of her thigh. He chewed his words as if he were afraid of her answer. "Mother, please! Do you love me? Do you do it because you love me?" In the dark holes of his mask his black eyes shone like glass. "I only did it to make you see how you loved me…"

"Devil," she whispered, lightly stroking her son with the tips of her fingers as her other palm cupped and kneaded at the underside of his shaft, his scrotum, and the soft, secret skin behind; he choked on a ragged exhale and rocked his hips into her touch. "Devil, devil––"

"Why must you call me that?" he breathed, swallowing a groan, "oh––Mother, no––"

"I call you that because it is true," she told him, as if he did not already know. The water that had pooled in his frantic stare spilled over, staining the black leather of his mask about the eye-holes; Madeleine wondered, briefly, why the Devil bothered to wear a mask at all. His ugliness was surely a mark of his evil; why should he not wear it proudly? Was it not his nature? Was he not nothing more than that? She fixed her gaze to his lips, repulsive, malformed twists of flesh upon his father's shapely chin, spittle stained and salt-crusted at the corners: she might have reached up and cleared the crust with her fingernails, had she cared to. She never had before. Now he was speaking, urgently, breathlessly above her, whimpering at her every touch: "Mother, listen to me, please. Call me a––all you like––if you must––but please, do you love me? Do you love me? " And then, as her fingers swept the full length of him once more, to capture him tightly about the base of his shaft and pull him towards her, he groaned out, raggedly, "oh, God, only tell me you love me––"

"I never have, little Devil," she breathed against him, opening her mouth on his naked chin; she felt the effect of her words in the ragged hissing breath that he blew upon her skin, in the hard pulse of his sex, his filth throbbing and weeping in her fist. She groped at his brush of thick hair, his stink and sweat, to tease the pinched hole of his ass; when she slid her finger inside, he growled like the animal she knew him to be, drooling, crying, thrusting into her touch––

She pulled at him faster, harder, until the first beads of sticky seed slid between her fingers and stained the wool of his half-opened trousers, as she fucked him like so many had done to her before, driving her finger again and again inside, until his mouth opened wide in a groaning pant, until he called out to her, helpless, desperate, "Mother, Mother!"

_Train up a child in the way he should go; and even when he is old, he will not depart from his teaching!_

She had him captive in her fist, moaning unabashedly as she wrapped her legs about him, easing her body into place beneath his; and as he stared, water-eyed, with straining jaw and occluded teeth, she led him to her entrance, she slid his wet tip against her hot skin, and eased the head of her son's cock inside.

He resisted, bucking his hips backwards to prevent her swallowing him further, raising himself by his sweating palms and the toes of his evening-shoes, even as his mouth gaped in a white-lipped o; "Mother, no," he whispered, "Mother, no," he begged; but Madeleine drew her hands about his rear, over his shuddering hips and into the cleft of his ass, pawing at his scrotum, his thighs, to push him forward and fully within her, as her legs wound about his back to bind his flesh to hers.

"Is this not what you wanted?" she hissed, dragging him close by his tautened shoulders, his half-clothed rear, grinding her hips against his to fuck his immobile shaft as he winced overtop her, "on this day of all days, to finish where you started? To crawl back inside like the slime you are?"

"Please," he breathed, though now his sweating fingers wrapped about her wrists, shaking even as he pulled them from about his rear to press down at her sides; Madeleine saw his eyes dart, hungrily, over her naked, swollen breasts, watched his gaze fixate at the crush of them, the wet, sticking mess of hair and fat flesh and wrinkled fabric as she rolled her body against his, forcing his movement within her. He groaned, thrust his body into hers, only once, but with senseless abandon as Madeleine gave a scream of pleasure; then, recovering, he choked, stammered, "wait––please, no––Mother, Mother, I must go from here. I must go––oh, God, no, no, I should never have come! Please, I will never ask anything of you again––"

"Stay," she whispered into his ear, as her tongue swept the flesh, "let your Mother love you––"

"You love me?" he breathed, and she could feel the tension easing in his rigid form as he whispered the words, "truly?"

She groaned as he drove himself again inside, then again. "No," Madeleine said softly, hazily, meeting his wide-eyed stare, "no. I never could, and I never will. How could anyone love a Devil with a face like yours?"

His expression contorted above her, the thin line of his malformed mouth, visible like a scar beyond the cover of the mask, twisted in hatred, disgust, agony; as he glared down at her, Madeleine watched the water pool in the dark holes of the mask to spill over the leather, felt the warm liquid fall against her cheeks to slide into the corners of her mouth and flavor her tongue; now she heard his panting sobs in time with his steady thrusts like another music, a new, terrible music, as he dug his long fingers into the tender skin of her wrists and pressed them, hard, into the cushion beneath them.

"Damn you," he breathed, his Devil's voice weak and ragged as he moved inside her, "damn you––Mother––"

He cried out as he finished, collapsing heavily against her naked front, bruising fingers still wrapped about her wrists to push her, weakly, into the cushions; as his pounding heartbeat slowed against her chest, Madeleine eased her sweating hands from his hold. He gave a soft whimper when her palm found his back, to stroke the heavy fabric of his jacket along his spine; as she might with any lover in the aftermath of his release, her fingers worked into his hair. Soon she was embracing him, wrapping her arms about his sides, rubbing, caressing, stroking him until he began again to cry atop her; heaving, cracking sobs which shook his body against hers, as his mouth, his dark eyes wet her flesh beneath: " Mother," he was sobbing, choking, "Mother, Mother," as Madeleine kissed his leather cheek, his forehead, his lips, and the wet slip of his cock slid from within her to flop between her still-spread thighs.

_As one whom his mother comforts, so shall I comfort you._

All had gone silent; the Devil's haggard sobs had stilled, his breath steady and even in its steaming of her breast. The weight of him on her naked skin had become a burden, aching, heavy, overwhelming––the Devil, why was the Devil overtop her, why was the Devil between her legs––

She tapped at him with her fingertips, softly, then harder, with urgency. Her breath had begun to feel like lead in her chest; as he shifted against her, relieving the pressure of his weight, she gasped and sucked in a panting inhale, and then another; and as he put his weight on his palms to raise himself from overtop her, quietly pleading, in a soft voice stained with sleep and mounting panic, "Mother, be calm… Mother, please, there is no use…" she began to scream and writhe beneath him, swat at his enveloping flesh and buck her hips against him.

"No, no no no," she wailed, floundering beneath his weight, "no no no no no––"

Now the Devil eased himself from overtop her, eyeing her sadly, as she squirmed out from underneath and dropped to the floor beside the couch like a stone, panting, "you monster, you beast––you––you––"

From his odd position atop the couch he reached for her, touching her cheek lightly with a palm; Madeleine swat his fingers away, hissing, sputtering, as salt-heat poured down her cheeks and choked her lips, "do not _touch_ me! Vile, abhorrent thing! You didn't… you wouldn't! Oh, God, what have you done to me?"

"Mother, wait––"

He slid from the couch to the floor beside her and she rose, gripping her ruined skirts in her fists and tearing at them as she paced a circle before the couch, chanting, "I am no sinner… I am a good and honest woman… I am no sinner… "

"Mother, I know." On the floor, his long limbs tangled like a child's beneath him, Erik watched her, frowning. His cock hung limp and swollen-pink atop his disordered trousers.

"I am a Godly woman!" she told him, trying not to look at it, that thing like the Devil's own fat tongue, laughing, parading its victory in both of their faces, "I have not sinned!" Erik nodded and fixed his stare at his hands; one black and stained with shimmering, opalescent fluid, one white and unnatural as death.

He slid his ruined glove from his hand and crushed the wet leather in his fist.

Madeleine watched in horror, buckling forward to clutch at her naked abdomen, panting, as the Devil rose slowly to his feet, and then to his full, sinister height; with a palm, he tucked his spent instrument into the damp folds of his trouser-fly, neatening his disordered shirt at the waistline and carefully fastening the buttons. He ran a bare hand over his scalp to smooth his wild hair, already greying, and straightened the evil shroud over his face; then, as Madeleine uttered a wordless, mindless groan, driving her fingers into her disordered curls and tearing them from her skull, he said quietly, "stop this, Mother. Please. There is no use."

"No," she whimpered raggedly, naked breasts heaving as she paced a frantic circle between the couch and the hearth; her hip struck the Christmas tree, shuddering all the flickering candles on their branches. She glanced at her son, still eyeing her sadly from the center of the room. "Only a dream," she assured him, shaking a trembling finger in his direction, "only another dream of _you_ …the Devil haunts me, he attempts to tempt me still… makes me see the foulest visions… the sickest sin, still… I will wake, see… soon, I will wake…"

Erik had gathered the shawl he had taken from her; now he held it out to her with both hands and said, "Mother, please, take this––"

She swat it from his hold to the floor, glared at him, and in a hiss began to pray, again taking up her pacing, "oh… holy father, hallowed be thy name...blessed art thou, who lives in Heaven..." and then she screamed, suddenly, startling a ragged exhale from the Devil across the room, as sour liquid slid in a lukewarm torrent down her inner thigh.

"No, no, no no no no," she panted, shaking where she stood, unable to move, as her son's foul seed spilled from the same wasted cunt she had once birthed him, and Erik shook his head, barely, as if he could not bear what he saw; "no, no, no… it is a nightmare, just another nightmare… you can't help a nightmare… it isn't a sin in a nightmare!"

Pausing in her frantic circling, Madeliene gathered her skirts in her fist and as Erik looked on, frowning, from his place before the couch, she shoved a hand beneath them, to swipe at the moisture still spilling down her naked thigh and onto her stockings. Now she drew the hand from her skirts to hold it out in front of her, curling and spreading the wet fingers as she gazed intently upon it. Creamy liquid stretched and slid between the fingers as she moved them, twisting the hand this way and that; with a choking sound, then a ragged cough, she let the fingers fall again to her sides, and collapsed bodily to her knees on the carpet.

Erik started, taking a step toward her as if he intended to soothe her, but Madeleine glowered at his advancement, causing him to slow, hissing up at him, "what have you done to me, Devil? What horror has your temptation borne of me now? Why…"

"Cease, Mother," he said dispassionately, holding his naked palms before him in a supplicating gesture, that somehow, from a monster such as him, felt more like a threat than a kindness. "I have hypnotized you, I am afraid. Whatever you imagine has occurred here, has."

"No… I would never…" she breathed, "I would never…"

He laughed, softly, as his gaze dropped to his shoes. "But you have said it yourself, have you not? I have a very unusual voice. Powerful. I tried to tell you… I have learned some valuable skills in my time away, even if I have not quite mastered them as I had hoped…" His voice fell to hardly more than a whisper, as he passed a hand over his face and said, " _look upon my works, ye mighty, and despair…"_

And then he raised his eyes again to capture hers. "Are you not proud of your son, Mother?"

"Satan!" she growled, as her nails dug deep into the carpet, "you came here tonight, for this?"

"Ah. Not this exactly, I admit. It was not my intention. I am not so skilled as to make you do anything you did not wish to. I thought… I thought if you could only see past my face, for only a moment… on my… well, at Christmas..." He stared at her in silence as something dark flashed behind that black mask; then, as Madeleine flinched and shivered, unable to break his acid stare, he added, "but you, sick woman… you have always seen me as you do now, have you not?"

"I have seen the Devil!" she cried.

"Then so shall I be him!" he roared, and lunging for her, he captured Madeleine about either side of her face, to crush his fearsome mouth to hers.

Now it was easy, to let the Devil kiss her; his repulsive mouth sucked the life from her, his abhorrent tongue stole her words. "Mother," he panted against her, wet, open, pleading, as soft, seductive music stung again at her ears and loosened her throat, "forgive your boy. He is so lost…"

His mouth tasted sour, of salt, spit and sin. She felt his fat, limp cock, tucked away and still hot against her thigh, and the damp, cold stain of her gown at her front––repulsive, vile––and still she kissed him, she slid her tongue against the Devil's own; she wanted the sharp bite of his evil mask as it cut into her skin, her mouth on his leather, his spit on her chin and her cheek. She wanted the sting of his fingers, twisting and pulling at her tangled hair, as he dragged her to stand against him, his palm crawling up her chest to gently cup her breast––

Your son, your son, chanted the horrible voice. He has bewitched you! Look upon what he has done, what he does to you now. Do you not still feel the Devil's seed inside of you?

Madeleine groaned against his lips; she pulled him closer by her arms wrapped about his angular back in a tight embrace, a hug, as a mother might give a son––

See how he seduces you, foul woman? His throat is evil; his music is of Hell itself. Have you not always known? That is the Devil's forked tongue you feel in your sinner's mouth!

His cock had become heavy, a gentle, sturdy weight against her thigh, still soft, and Madeleine found herself aching for it; seeking him, she ground herself against his front, letting the soft, swollen spread of her sex rock against him. He shuddered an intake of breath, and pulling from her wet mouth her captured her stare, black eyes so wide Madeleine could see the dark pupils swimming in seas of glowing white; "little Devil," she breathed, breath steaming against his mask as his expression turned to a frown, and his hand swept her side to gather her skirts in a fist. He pulled at the fabric, roughly, hastily, tearing it up to her hip, exposing her naked flesh to the cool bite of the still air, and then, as Madeleine's eyelids fluttered hazily and her body slumped against his weight, he slid two fingers over her still-soaked cunt, then brought them to his lips, to suck her liquid from the skin.

She smiled then, and capturing his hand in her own, she brought the cool flesh to her mouth, to slip his stained fingers between her lips as the Devil stared, his shrouded face dark and unreadable, as Madeleine licked her shameless salt, her sugar from his skin.

"If I asked it of you, right now, Mother," he said, hesitantly, white teeth sharp and shining as they cut into his bottom lip, as if he were trying to prevent the words escape from the cavern of his mouth, "would you get on your knees before me? Would you worship me, as your boy, shower me in love as you do your God?"

Madeline slid his fingers from between her lips and brought his hand to her bare breast; moaning weakly as his fingertips closed over the dusky flesh. "Yes, Devil," she breathed, again rolling her hips into the pressure of his thigh, wetting the dark wool of his trouser-leg with her fluids and his, as he slowly, knowingly rocked his body into hers, panting into the contact, "for your song, little Devil, I would fall to my knees, and take your hot cock in my mouth, if that is what you would have of me––"

Now with a sudden, anguished groan, he shoved her backwards until her bare flesh met the wall, just aside her writing desk, shuddering its shelves of portraits and mistletoe with the urgency of his rage.

"Damn you!" he roared suddenly, "why must you continue to say such things? Do you not realize––I cannot stop myself––I will take you up on it, damn you!"

"Take me. I have given in, Devil. Your song––it plays tricks on my mind. But it feels so good. You wanted to make your Mother feel good, did you not? Is it not what you always––"

"Do not say it," he hissed, "I cannot hear this––"

"But you must, little Devil. Dark Angel. My Angel. For so long, I have been entombed in this horrible place, fearing you, needing you, hating you––wanting you, Devil, Devil––ashamed of what I did, what I felt––begging forgiveness for loosing you upon this undeserving world. But you have freed me! The Devil, singing in my ear. Erik, little Devil, can you even imagine how good it feels, after a life of guilt, of pious restraint, to let yourself give in? To do the worst thing you could ever do, to the worst _thing_ you could ever know––"

"This was not what I wanted!" he roared, slamming a fist upon the writing-desk, scattering ornaments and portraits, "I am not a _thing_ to be fucked in revenge to your God, woman! I am your son!" As glass shattered at their feet, Erik swept his palm over the remains of the vignette, mindlessly wrapping his fingers around a toppled figurine of an angel, smooth and perfect, in shining, painted porcelain, a ring of holly adorning its skirts. Now, pushing his mother against the wall, he growled, as his thumb smothered its simpering face, "did you make this?" He shook the little angel before her in a strangling fist. "Did you make it for your little girl, or your dead husband? Or was it for one of the hoards of men I watched lick your cunt, when you could not be bothered for a single, innocent touch of _your son's_ hand?"

"What does it matter? It wasn't for you," Madeleine whispered, still holding up her torn, stained skirts, as she ground her naked sex against the Devil's thigh, his flaccid softness, "I would never have made one for you––"

He pushed her away from him, attempting, feebly, to separate her body from his, even as the tips of his fingers teased at her exposed sex, slipping between the folds of her as she groaned like a whore against him. Staring at his fingers as he slid inside her again, he muttered, softly, his words heavy, wet, the little Angel dangling limply from his fist, "Mother, no––no, no, no––"

But her lips closed over his again, smothering his words and a desperate groan with them, as he crushed her against the wall with his weight, kissing her, kissing her; and now his fingers were wound in her hair as he dragged the little Angel beneath her skirts, shoving its haloed head against the mouth of her sex, as Madeleine panted into her son's open mouth, tasting his putrid breath, that fire, that brimstone; she raised a leg to wrap around him, and flung her arms about his shoulders to hang from him, prostrating herself entirely at the Devil's mercy––

_How you have fallen from Heaven, Morning Star, son of the dawn! You have been cast down to the Earth, you who once laid low the nations!_

"Do it, Devil," she spat, bracing herself against the wall with white fingers, as Erik glared, seething, his expression twisted, merciless, wild, " _do it!_ "

_I saw Satan fall like lightning from Heaven!_

With a grunt he shoved the little figurine inside her; Madeleine screamed, breathily, lustily, as it stretched and tore into her, forcing her rear against the wall. Now his eyes met hers, boring burning holes in her flesh, as he gripped her lifted thigh to spread her legs further; pulling the angel from her, he thrust it inside again, until the tips of its sandalled toes disappeared within her, and his Devil's fingertips along with it. "Do it, _do it!_ You are every bit the beast I knew you to be!" she groaned, as she swallowed the whole of the blasphemous thing, and her boy panted, drooling against her cheek, "you are the creature of my nightmares!"

"Is this what you always wanted, then, Mother?" he growled, pulling, pushing the figurine, again, then again within her, fucking her with his demon's instrument, this cruel joke as she groaned, weakly, against the slick cheek of his leather mask, "is this why you feared your boy?" He slid his tongue inside her ear as she shuddered, then opened his hot mouth against it, whispering his profane music, sweet, heavenly, rhapsodic music, music like a drug, a release; Madeleine moaned and rolled her hips into his slow, soaked, hurting thrusts, raised her thigh higher against him to allow him deeper inside; "I knew why you could not bear to hear me sing, Mother," he spat, in, out, in, out, "I did not understand what I saw, that night, any of them, but I knew… I knew… "

And then he tore the Angel from within her, throwing it down to shatter on the floor between them and wiping his fingers, roughly, on the fat of her naked thigh. Her stained skirts fell about her ankles as Erik gripped her at her hips, digging his iron fingertips into the soft flesh as he stared down at her naked, heaving breasts. "It was never love you felt for me," he began, slowly, "never love, but something else. Tell me, Mother, how does it feel to hear me sing? To hear me _speak_? How wet was your cunt when your son first opened his mouth tonight?"

Your son. Your son! The smothered voice within Madeleine screamed, as hot, fearful panic suddenly thundered in her chest. Now the Devil growled against her ear, "you would have fucked me as a boy, wouldn't you, Mother? That night, if I had crawled atop you in your bed… if I kept singing, would you have embraced me then?"

She struck him, hard across the face, her expression contorting as he licked a drop of blood from his lip and straightened the mask with a fingertip. He laughed––that same, soft, seductive sound, his open mouth twisting into a cruel scowl. Madeleine had her hand raised to strike him again, but before her palm met his leather skin he had her captured by both wrists; suddenly, violently pressing her forward such that she bent across the top of the desk.

"I could do it again, Madeleine," he growled above her, forcing her body against the table-top by his hold on her wrists, and the pressure of his weight as he stood behind her, as if he meant to rut her against the furniture, "I could make you do anything I wished. Almost anything. Almost. I could come to you every night, for the rest of your days. I cannot make you love me, but I could fuck you night after night, fuck you into the pit and make you beg me for it every time, just like the Devil you think I am. Holy woman! I have already sent you to Hell, and me with you! What more have I to lose?"

"Devil!" she hissed, cheek hot against the cool mahogany of the writing-desk, even as she pressed her sex into his front, willing his touch, his anger, his anything–– "Devil, Devil!"

"Devil, Mother?" he spat, "is that not the very name you gave me as a boy? You hated me then. Never a touch, never an embrace! A lifetime of holy virtue on high, Mother, and look, how quickly Angels fall! How quickly threw you down your bible, to take the Devil's cock?" His senseless palms moved in a frenzy over her folded spine, across her exposed shoulders, her sides, her rear. As if he meant to make up for a half-lifetime of restraint, he stroked her, caressed her, memorized every inch of the back of her, as if his writhing, bent-over mother were a work of perfect art; and then he was coughing, as fat tears again began to fall from his chin, to wet the ruddy, bare flesh beneath him, even as Madeleine moaned into his touches, parting her thighs and pushing her hips against his, "it was never what I wanted! Never, damn you! How could you… how could you let me…" cold air swept her naked back as he released her, to stumble backwards into the center of the room, as Madeleine braced herself on sweating palms atop the table's surface.

"Do you think I am blind, Mother?" he breathed, black eyes searching as they captured hers, "I have always known what it truly was you feared of me. I was only a boy… it was only music! Mother, I would have never… how could you have thought it of me? A boy, just a boy… I only wanted a kiss, damn you! A kiss! A touch, an embrace, a cup of God-damned tea! I did not understand what I saw, when I touched you then… I did not know what I did! It was the only touch you ever permit me, damn you, of course I wanted it! I was not trying to… oh, hateful viper, I was a _child_! Why could you not just love me as you should have?" He struck the mask with the flat of his palm. "I am a human, under here, damn you, you cursed woman! Mother, _please_!"

"I see you for what you are!" she growled, "I always have!"

"Damn you, _damn you!_ It was you who put this evil inside of me! I never would have… oh, God… oh, God, forgive me! Mother, Mother," he sobbed, "I only wanted a kiss!"

But the music was gone, immuring the room in dreadful, suffocating silence, as he stood, still as a shadow, and tracks of water darkened the black leather of his cheeks. "Pray for me, Mother, pray to your _God_ , I beg it of you. Save me! The things I have done..." He covered his face in his hands, then ran his fingers through his crown, sticking the waxen hair up in all directions before peering through his naked fingers at her, whispering, urgently and wide-eyed, "I should never have come! I can never be good! I never learned _how!"_

Madeleine glared up at his hideous figure, dry lips twisting in a cruel scowl as she hissed, "God does not want you, boy. He has never wanted you! He abandoned us both as soon as you crawled from the muck! But I knew, I knew what you were as soon as I laid eyes on your repulsive face…I prayed for you, I did… you call yourself human, Devil? You have never been human. No human looks as you do, boy. You are nothing but the rotten corpse of your father, brought to life on the night of his death: an aberration, a disgusting stain upon the Earth! Call yourself human but we both know the truth of it! Would a human do as you have just done? As you ever did? I am your Mother! I birthed you, I _know you!_ Kill yourself, rid this world of you! Foul, foul," she spat, " _thing! Thing!_ Spare us all, and kill yourself!"

"Ah," he said raggedly, with a choking, weak laugh that died in his throat, "that is the Madeleine I remember. You raised me to hate myself, fear myself… detest all that I am… you will feel that way too, before I am done with you." The venom hissed from his voice as he added, softly, "or do you feel it already, Mother? Do you despise yourself, as your son's seed stains your petticoats, just like his afterbirth?"

Madeleine spun, suddenly shrieking into the surrounding darkness as if she expected the butler to be there, "where is Claudin? Claudin? Claudin! Come here, you cretinous oaf––"

Erik closed his eyes, and breathed a long exhale. "He is dead, Mother," he said gently, "strangled in your garden. Go outside; you will find him waiting there!"

"No! No, you wouldn't dare!" she stammered. But the finality of that dark gaze was irrefutable; the Devil did not lie. Now she stumbled for the wall as he watched, reaching for anything to steady herself; her head was spinning, hurting, her memory uncertain, the images flashing behind her eyelids both vivid and unclear––touching herself, as the boy sang beside her, pulling at his hot, man's cock, taking it inside––

She captured the side of a small table, pressing all her weight upon it such that it toppled and fell, showering the carpet in a mess of goose-feather Christmas trees; Madeleine gave a cry as an oil-lamp shattered on the floor and sputtered out, spilling its noxious grease across the greenery. Attempting to collect herself, panting frantically, she growled, "you will pay for these sins, Devil. You will get what is coming to you, one day, I know! The lord will come for you––"

"I wish he would," Erik spat, dryly. "But it is just as you say. God has long forgotten me, Mother! And you, alongside!"

"Then I will pray that he remembers! My God is good; he will forgive me for what you have done here. God will forgive me…God will forgive… " Now she staggered, catching her knees in her palms as she glared at the Devil across the room, "but you, you," she coughed, raggedly, and stumbled to one knee. Tears stung her cheeks and sputtered from her lips; "you… he will send you to Hell where you belong. Mark my words, you will be punished..."

"I have been punished all my life!" Erik roared, closing the space between them with two rushing steps. Madeleine stared up at his ominous form, the Dark Angel filling her living room with unholy fire, black fire which burned from behind his false skin and beneath the dark stain of his trouser-fronts; "damn you, woman! What worser fate can you wish upon me that I have not already suffered? Oh God, a lifetime of this… thirty damnable years I have spent behind the prison bars of this abhorrent face, this face _you gave me!_ You birthed me, woman, you made this Devil you see. If the fault lies with any, it is not God, it is not Satan: it is you, cursed woman, repulsive mother! And just as you bear my seed may you birth another demon, another foul, loathsome _stain upon this Earth_ ––" he was choking on the words, sobbing out each syllable as he gripped at his stomach, folding forward and dropping bodily to his knees, "––and when you do, when you do… Mother, I will take him, I will love him, I will give him the life you denied me, all the love in the world… oh God, Mother… Mother… forgive me, I only wanted a kiss..."

On his knees he dragged himself towards her, pulling himself forward by his bare palms. In terror she watched him crawling, just as the serpent slithered to Eve, his temptation plain as the filth on his trousers as he brought himself before her, supplicant, subversive, his long fingers spread wide as he raised them about her slack face.

"Devil!" she screamed, as soon as his palms lighted on her shoulders; he tore his hands away, and still she continued, shrilly, inhumanely, screeching the word again and again––

In a mindless ravage she struck him, beat him, fists and fingernails flailing against his unresisting flesh; just as he had done, innumerable times as a boy, he cowered into her abuse, covering his mask in his spread fingers as he took each hit. His spine curled, his skin bled; and still he said nothing, did nothing, folding forward into himself until her blows began to slow, as her breath rushed hot and loud between her panting lips.

"Mother, please " came the softly-broken voice of the Devil, whimpering from between his shaking knees, "please, Mother, stop––"

"Damn you to Hell," Madeleine rasped, tears stinging her raw cheeks, her breath hurting in her straining lungs. Her hands fell limp about his shuddering sides. In weighted silence, she waited for his deliverance:

And then he was upon her, the Devil clutching her sweating skull in both claws as he pressed his leather forehead close to hers, and perfect sound poured from his lips; and now there were words, music, an oblivion of bliss; panting and pulsating between them. Again overcome, Madeleine dropped to her shins against the carpet, palms flat at her sides, and stared slackly up at her son as he glowered at her, lost.

For several moments more he watched her, wide-eyed, broad shoulders slack, chest heaving as he fought for each haggard breath; then, as if every syllable stung him, stabbed at him, he rasped out, his desperation clear, bright as the burning candles adorning the half-shadowed Christmas tree behind him, "Mother, you––you will do as I say!"

"I will," Madeleine told her son, gazing upon him as if nothing else in the room existed or mattered. The music echoed in her eardrums, prurient and perfect; numbing her senses and forgiving her sins; she loved it, loved him, loved him, loved him––

The Devil, her God.

And now there were new words, strange words, that Madeleine could not fathom the purpose of; she smiled placidly as the Devil sobbed before her, red-eyed, blood trailing from beneath the distorted shroud of his leather mask, as he pleaded between hacking, harried breaths, "please, then, please––make me a glass of warm milk, Mother. Give me a stick of peppermint. Treat me like a boy! It is Christmas, and I am frightened––" his cool fingers brushed the length of her tangled hair as she purred into his gentle touch. "I am so frightened. Tend to your son, damn you! Love him, please––are you not the only one who can?"

She did not move, did not raise from her folded knees to do as the Devil bid her; his words were not those of the music, they were lies, deceptions. She shook her head. Madeleine knew what the music wanted of her, she knew what it commanded, between her still-slick thighs––

The Devil nodded and gave a low, snorting laugh, as if in exhaustion, surrender, release. Madeleine pressed her palms to his chest, felt his racing heartbeat, felt his body tremble as her touch slid lower, lower, felt the breath catch in his chest, the muscles tauten in his abdomen as her fingertips slid again beneath the waistband of his trousers. "Mother, no," he was chanting, softly, above her, his words breathless, exhausted, agonized, "Mother, I cannot––"

"Erik," she panted, feeling the sick, salvific shame, her son's seed still slick against her thighs, pooling on the carpet beneath her as she worked the bone-buttons of his fly, teasing his limp shaft with a palm, "Erik, do not leave me now. Come to bed… let me put you to bed. You can sleep with me tonight. You are my son…"

He stared at her a moment, first with blank, unrestrained horror, his mouth hanging open and turned down at the corners; then he frowned, narrowing his dark eyes behind the leather shroud as if he were considering the offer. His entire body showed the tension of his deliberation.

"Mother," he said finally, breathlessly, "Mother… that is not what I intended…"

But Madeleine pressed at his trouser-fronts with her hot palms, digging her nails into the fabric as she chanted, again, to his slack, unresisting terror, "come to bed, my son… my Erik… come to bed… it's Christmas Eve, and I want you with me. Let me read you a bedtime story… let me _kiss_ you… "

She pushed her fingers beneath the half-opened fabric of his fly, to cup the sweating, flaccid waste of his sex. Floundering forward on her knees, staring up at the Devil through her heavy eyelashes, she brought a hand about his thigh to dig the fingers beneath his rear, and brought her lips to his groin; as if in prayer she bent prostrate before him, opening her mouth to suck at his soft flesh atop the fabric, to pull the length of him between her cheeks, to milk him as he had once done to her––her son, her son––

_And above all, love each other deeply, because love covers over a multitude of sins––_

"There!" Erik spat, tearing himself from her searching fingers, her wet, hungry lips, as he shoved his half-naked cock back in his trousers, "there it is, whore. How easily you let me ruin you! Damn your weakness, woman! How easily you have let me drag you from this pedestal I have built!"

But she ignored him, groping forward on her knees to clutch his wrists as he scowled at the contact, chanting, "sing to me again, my son… let me hear that Devil's voice! How it has haunted me all these years. Did you believe you had freed yourself when you ran from here? That you had freed me? I have never escaped you! And now I see what you wanted of me all this time: you were a prisoner as much as I!" Shrugging her pawing fingers aside, horror staining his expression, Erik broke free of her grasp, staggering gracelessly to his feet; Madeleine dragged herself forward, throwing her arms around his rigid legs, pawing her fingertips into his thighs, the backs of his knees, the base of his rear, "My son, my son, I hear you, every night, every moment, that unholy music pounding in my ears… Erik, Devil, you torture me… I writhe in my sleep, I cannot escape it… it burns! It controls me… I hear it now… oh, I hear it now!"

"I do not love you anymore, woman," he spat, glaring with unrestrained disgust at the whimpering, half-dressed body at his feet, "thank you for that. Get up, get up from your knees. Perhaps I have been a prisoner, but now you have freed me, Mother, with your _love_! Rejoice in that, you holy woman!"

"You will not abandon me, Devil! Not after this! Sing to me, you sick creature! Fill me with your music…" With one hand she slid the mess of her skirts up about her hips, spreading her thighs against the carpet and showing him the creamy wet of her naked sex, panting, "fill me, my son, I am so empty…"

Erik tore his palm from her grasp to slide it into his trouser pocket. "Put your tits away," he growled, his disdain like a flame, searing her flesh as he glared down at her, "You look like a street whore, and I have had enough of their kind for a lifetime. I have no more purpose with you."

Then, pulling his soiled glove from his pocket with a snort, he strode to the hearth, and threw the thing on the dying fire. Watching the leather catch, smolder, he growled, without turning to his mother on the floor behind him, "I am leaving now."

Sensing the rigid tension return to his dark spine as he stared into the dying flames, Madeleine knew she would never see her son again, after tonight.

Now she scrambled to her knees, throwing herself towards the disheveled writing-desk; in a frenzy she tore into drawers, flung papers and trinkets aside, as Erik turned to watch without interest. Then she was panting, staring, as she tore the thing she sought from its hiding place; with two hands, she raised the pistol towards him, shaking at the knees, naked breasts cold in the night air.

"I bought it when you were less than five, Devil," she hissed, the pistol trembling between her spread fingers, "and I have held it by my side all these years. These bullets have your name on them!"

"You are a weak woman," spat her son, laughing, his mirth no longer soft, resigned, but cruel, biting, as he glowered at her from the fire, his gaze burning as much as it would were he those flames himself, as much as it had the time Madeleine had forced her own palm beneath the hot coals–– "you wouldn't dare."

"Are you so sure?" she cried, her voice shrill, inhuman, as she pointed the pistol at him, "you do not know me! You do not know me at all! I would relish in it––I swear it, I would––"

"Please, I would welcome it!" Erik roared, closing the space between them as he rushed towards her, pressing his body against the frozen barrel of the gun, as Madeleine looked on in terror, "kill me! You brought me into this hell and you have wanted me out of it from the moment you did! Remove me from this world just as you have sired me! Put me out of my misery, Mother, I beg of you! Or I shall haunt you for the rest of your days on this Earth, as long as I am haunted by _you!_ Call me a monster, a devil… am I not one? You always knew me best! Have I not just bed you––" he dropped heavily to his knees, "fucked you––my mother––oh, my God, my mother––my mother––"

As if a shadow had passed over the room, the air within it stilled, to stifling solidity, as Madeleine stared down the barrel of the gun, into the black eyes of the Devil on his knees, and the shimmering glow of the candles in the Christmas tree behind him; "Mother," he whispered, meeting her stare, "do it. If you ever loved me, Mother, please… "

She closed her eyes. The weight of the pistol was heavy; it stung at the tender muscles of her naked arm, it ached like a weight of lead in her fist. The Christmas candles still burned, joyful on each windowsill, the choir of Angels posed peacefully on the mantel before the flickering hearth.

"I'll be back," he promised, "if you do not. I will come back, again and again, and it will always be the same. I'll do it again." His demon's voice was ragged, reedy, weak, as he sputtered, his words wet with heavy tears, "you must, please. Do it. If you ever loved me, Mother, even in the slightest––"

"I never have," she told him, flatly, "not at all."

_Repent, then, and turn to me, so that your sins may be wiped out, that times of refreshing may come from the Lord!_

And now she brought it close, close enough to smell the cold metal like blood, as she pressed it against her hot skin, easing the ache in her temple with its soothing touch; "Erik," she said, evenly, "show me the Devil's face. Show me my sin."

He had risen to stand, slowly; now he slid the black shroud over his brow, further upending his disordered hair, and let it fall to the floor at his feet. He stood close, so close she might have reached out and stroked his ruined cheek had she so desired; but the iron weight of the pistol prevented her movement, so she met her eyes to his, and sighing softly, she smiled to see her son's true face.

Death, she realized. Death, not the Devil.

_The Lord our God is merciful and forgiving, even though we have rebelled against him; for he has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves, in whom we have redemption––_

_In whom we are forgiven._

"Do you love me, Erik?" Madeleine breathed, as the metal click of the trigger echoed through the silent room.

"I do not love you, Mother," said her son, though his eyes were wide and searching, just like a little boy's, "I do not love you anymore."

And then the fire, the choking rush––

* * *

_**A/N, again:** _ _Yes, I know 1861 is a little early for both the printed photograph and the Christmas tree, but it is fiction, after all._

_The various quotes throughout are from scripture, and some have been slightly altered to suit my needs and the language._ _The poem Erik references is_ _**Ozymandias** by Percy Bysshe Shelley._

_Last edited July 2020._

_**Thank you for reading! Please leave a comment/review! :)** _


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